Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen won an exciting United States Grand Prix on Sunday night to extend his lead in the drivers’ world championship in the 2021 season.
“It was an exciting race and it feels incredible to win here in front of all the fans. The pressure was on for the whole race and not knowing how quickly Lewis would catch up. I actually thought I had a decent start, but Lewis had an even better one. So, we went for an aggressive strategy after losing the lead into turn one and we pitted early in the first stint,” said Verstappen.
“Then, for the middle stint, we were in that undercut range. So we had to respond and we went for track position which made the last stint very long, especially in this heat. The last two laps were definitely difficult on the tyres, there wasn’t much grip left. But, then with two laps to go, I had the Haas in front of me and I was able to benefit from the DRS, so we managed to hang on in the end. We definitely gave it our all today as a Team and it was great to have Checo (Sergio Perez) up there with me on the podium,” he added.
Verstappen has 287.5 points, while Hamilton has 275.5 and is in the second place. Valtteri Bottas is third on 185 points, while Perez is fourth with 150 points.
Hamilton said: “Firstly, congratulations to Max, he did a brilliant job. And also, a big thank you to the amazing crowd we've had in Austin all weekend, to perform in front of such packed grandstands and passionate fans has been a real honour. I really thought for a second we might be able to win, I gave it absolutely everything out there. It was such a tough race, but unfortunately, we couldn't convert it.
“Red Bull just had the upper hand, and we couldn't match them. It looked like they had a better and more stable rear end on their car, with less sliding. The start was obviously great and closing the gap towards the end, but I got into the dirty air and the tyres overheated in the last few laps. Thank you to the team for amazing pit stops and so much hard work over the weekend. We didn't quite get it this time, but we'll move onto the next one," he added.
Third-placed Perez said: “That was the hardest and longest race of my life. I wasn’t feeling great before the race and then my drinks system stopped working on the first lap and with the hot weather today it was very physical and a pretty tough afternoon. I was struggling massively and by lap 20 I was done, so it was a shame I couldn’t keep up with Max and Lewis but there are a lot of positives to take from this weekend and back to back podiums are always nice."
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